A lifetime
by Keiara Brinn
Summary: A lost fire elf who lives life rated M for a suggestive scene. I do not own Elfquest :)


p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="color: #1d2129;" /spanspan style="color: #1d2129;"span style="font-family: inherit;"span style="font-size: 9pt;"There is a low fog on the horizon, it is so thick it is almost opaque, hanging just above the tops of the broad leaf greenery but holding fast below the tree line. The stars shine brightly above my head while another giant silver planet looms in the skyline. Having just arrived here I am not yet sure if we orbit it or it us, though I am not sure what drives me to wonder such things. The night air has the cold bite of winter's frost but yet somehow still moist enough to mat my hair in places. The damp leathers I wear, are torn and to cling to my clammy skin. /span/span/spanI have been stumbling through the dense tropical forest long enough that I have blisters, along with the cuts and bruises on my numbed feet./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"I broke for the trees after being discovered by a large carnivorous reptile, there are flying creatures, little rodents, a few different varieties of smaller reptiles and a myriad of insects flitting about most of which scatter as I draw near. The large leaf plants and tall trees that surround me give me a sense of security as well as a sense of impending doom, the noises of the forest have begun to drown out even my own thoughts. I find myself imitating the small reptiles who chirp to each while wildly darting their heads from side to side assessing the current level of danger./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"The sound of running water leads me to a small cave that has formed from a tree splitting through a large stone, mostly hidden by the broad leaves and within eyeshot from a meandering stream. A quick peek inside the cave confirms that it is indeed empty, save the abandoned webs, and a couple creepy crawlies that were easily ushered away from where I have chosen to call home. Alone, though I think in terms of us. Strange I think as I scan the area and head off in search of burnable wood scraps. I find enough dry tinder for a small fire. I am lucky my power, though barely working, allows me to spark small flames and give the flame a little shape and I bend the tip of the flame outside the cave in hopes the smoke follows it. I dry my clothes and take note of my situation. Yes, I am alone, but I am not feeble. I remember tales of noble kills and wild hunts but I can no longer picture the faces that tell these stories. Just a glimpse of a fallen red curl, the distant memory a glimmer really of a man spinning her around above his head, his dark braids dancing below her eye line. I shiver a little at the feeling of loss but not knowing what it is I have lost and turn my mind to my growling stomach. I guess it is in my nature to be forgetful as I easily move on from the subject. I pull the pliable fabric of my leathers over my body while they are still warm from being near the fire. The small comfort it brings is enough to steal my nerve and I leave to seek out food./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"My first kill on this world was not one to be proud of, my powers failed me and I had to bludgeon the creature to death. I tried to warm the kill back up after I arrived home so it would taste fresher but overdid it and crispified more than half my prize. Scavenging bones from leftover carcasses, I begin to create my first tools, and I pull pieces of hyde that are left after my giant carnivore has left his kills sometimes being brave enough to take some meat here or there. I choose to cook over a fire made of wood and coal rather than dare use my powers, the lesson has been hard learned when it comes to food, and what the pangs of hunger can do to ones concentration. I learned quickly to cover my scent so I wouldn't be discovered by the beast, a narrow escape early on taught me to be cautious first, hungry second./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"As I time passes, I mold my tree with tethers, ties and a weaving of its growing branches. I learn better more effective ways to avoid the large predators and have chosen to keep outsmarting and sometimes eating the small ones. It proves to be a good game of cat and mouse to keep my mind clear, my strategy has developed as I have lived here. Evolved really, as they learn, so must I./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"It has been long enough that I have watched as my tree has grown into a home. The interior of my knot hole den is lined with the hydes I have claimed which do remarkably well at blocking the wind and holding in the heat. It takes very little effort to heat the area even in the colder months. I try to use my powers in some way everyday and am able to use them to heat small stones that gently radiate that heat from a shelf made of bone./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"Cultivating some of the wild flowers and perennials I have come across provides with with a small source of enjoyment as I continue to spend each day along still wondering how I got here, why I never try to leave and why my heart aches for something I can feel but can't quite remember. Though the pull of this world always calls me back from my thoughts and I smile as I tend to my small garden./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"Time... is that the right word I struggle hard with the concept but I know I am not the scraggly elf that landed here. My reflection in the water shows little has changed in my face but I have a few burns and some small scars from dinners that fought back. My fire control has progressed and I take advantage and create some art. I recreate life by gently scorching picturesque scenes into the nearby trees. My favorite of late seems to be creating a copy of the large reptiles that rule this world both the plant eaters and carnivores alike. Sitting by the fire at night gives me time to coax the flame, to bend the flame into the shape of creatures and blurry faces with red curls, or darker flamed long braids. I can dance the shapes about for as long as my concentration holds on the story I have created, and it helps me to pass the time./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"Though a lonely existence it has become satisfying to see the new comforts I have learned to provide. Somehow the planet ever present in the sky has become like a companion, ever present. Some days while she wandered the ground in search of food or useful things she would catch herself talking to the planet. Though never out loud, she would talk to the planet in her head. emIn the trees as you please/em she thought to the planet... emon the ground not a sound./em She stifled a giggle wondering where and when she had picked up such a silly saying. emAh puckernuts! Do you see that!/em she thought loudly to the planet as another of her pictures had reached a height that made it impossible for her to enjoy. She tilted her head a little to the left as she glanced up at the large silver planet. It seemed bigger to her somehow. The bigger the planet appeared the stronger her urge to talk to it became. /p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"A low rumbling began, waking her from her slumber and she moved out of the tree and down to tiny cave below, one of the rocks leaning against the tree toppled over leaving only one half of her cave still standing. The other was shaking vigorously as the rumbling grew louder and the land beneath her feet seemed to cry out, its plea growing ever louder./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"Disaster strikes, the land as far as my eyes can see erupts into a pyroclastic cloud, the heat rushes up begins to destroying everything I have worked for. My garden begins to wilt as the cloud draws closer. A bead of sweat forms at the top of my brow and makes its way slowly down my face. It is strange as the land nearby cracks and erupts taking the tiny river from flowing water to molten rock I find myself drawn to it. Looking through the dark black clouds forming from the ground somehow I note the planet in the skyline seems a least twice or three times as large as it did when I arrived./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"Though the notion no longer seems important to me now, the heat and the flames dance for me I feel as the land on fire beckon me ever closer. I find every step closer I edge the easier it becomes to breathe the hot air and the clearer the air around me becomes. A visible steam begins to vent around me and I feel my interior temperature beginning to rise. I push my powers of concentration to their limit in an attempt to reach the flow of the rose coloured river before me. It is so close but every step seems to be in slow motion. The steam around me has taken on a blue hue as I inch even closer to my goal./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"A feeling of release flows over me and I reach out plunging my hand into the glowing glory before me, but as I reach out I see that I am not myself. I have changed. I glow with the same colour as the river I longed for. To my surprise my new physique pulls sustenance from the river of superheated rock. I feel the flow of the river and move into it following it to its beginning. It dives into the earth and I begin to follow a long tunnel leading ever deeper within the planet. Past its crust to its molten core. It is here I wait as the two planets become one over millennia of slow fusion fueled by heat and gravity. At last they settle and I choose a new place to sleep and bed down for a long warm nap, tucked away deep below the new planet's surface. I wait. Sometimes when I dream I remember the tickle of red curls of the chubby cheeks of my youth, sometimes it's the forests and the reptiles that came before, often I dream of dancing flames, sometimes I dream of travelling through the stars, but the dream I dream the most is that of the day another of my kind will come to wake me./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"(not sure i should add this so read at the risk of wrecking the above lol)/p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"I awoke with a start, my body recoiled at the feeling. A touch, what was it? Something had brushed against my cheek...The soft caress was accompanied by words, a spark, a voice, and a feeling of...what was this feeling? The voice felt so close it could be right next to my ear, just above my face, or even inside my mind. Was that the feeling of breath on my skin? I opened my eyes to see another form in front of me. Right. In. Front. Of. Me. His chiseled face looking down at mine, his huge hand reached out to clasp mine tightly. His form the same as mine though a head taller, broader shoulders, and a darker colour. I felt the need in his words as he spoke without sound. ** I heard you. I have longed for you, I have dreamed of you, I felt you. ** I knew his thoughts truthful somehow. As our eyes met, I knew we were always to be one, we were of one soul, one planet. Our bodies intertwined in a dance of flames, his touch sending excitement coursing through me, my blood burned inside me and my body screamed silently for his. There was no time for contemplation she was fully enveloped in the moment. There was only time for giving in to the need, his touch and the sensations it brought. The two elves collapsed in a pile of sweat, the sweet scent of two bodies entwined laced the air while they lay together neither willing to be the first to move. His hand caressed her chin as he drew her in for another gentle kiss./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"She felt something, her eyes widened and she looked at him in disbelief. I carry our child she thought as her breath caught her throat a little. He brought her lips to his once more gently tugging at her lip. He had everything he had ever dreamed, he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and enjoyed as she relaxed as he deepened the kiss./p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"It was days or weeks after that a song popped into her mind, then the red curls flashed, that followed by a scent and the feeling of furs, then she remembered the face of her mother for the first time since she awoken here. She accessed something buried deep within her mind and concentrated hard. The vibration of her plea caused the molten rock they lay in to ripple and she knew she had done all that she could. She was more than content, her little one grew, and was birthed on the 3 turned of the seasons after she had met her lovemate for the first time. During her daughters 50th turn of the seasons a distant but familiar voice graced her mind. Her mother called out to her and she reached out, her mind touching her mother's with unparalleled joy. They met at the entrance to a volcano, there were but three elves in front the little family not just two. Her mother reached out to hug her and the fire she was made of melted away to reveal her slightly tan coloured skin and her soft brown-red hair fell down around her face, she had forgotten the feeling of pushing it out of the way to reveal her big blue eyes. Her father reached for the young elf to her side and the fire melted away to reveal youthful gently tanned skinned and flaming red locks of hair her eyes the same piercing blue. Her lovemates flames faded and he greeted them tearfully as they were the most of his kind he had ever seen. His soft green eyes twinkled while framed by the light brown hair that hung down in his face in just the right way. He had no face fur, though his eyes spoke his age they sparkled in a way that suggested that he knew more than he let on. Her parents wanted her to come home they had found the pieces of her broken pod, and added them back into the castle. She wanted her daughter to come home to the castle, to let them visit the home star and then continue on. Meanwhile the buxom young elf next to her parents cleared his throat and stepped forward to look her daughter in the eye.../p  
p style="margin-left: 0.03cm; margin-right: 0.03cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;"I am so sorry this got a little excessive I have been rambling, thanks for reading if you made it through! /p 


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